Montpelier, Vermont has been the focus of relief efforts as the capital city is inundated by floodwaters. But there has been devastation across the state in the wake of heavy rains over the past week.
President Biden issued an Emergency Declaration for the state Tuesday authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to coordinate disaster relief efforts due to flooding that began on July 9th and hasn’t stopped. Republican Governor Phil Scott says the declaration for all 14 counties will help mobilize federal resources to support the state’s response and recovery efforts.
“Make no mistake the devastation and flooding we’re experiencing across Vermont is historic and catastrophic. Floodwaters continue to rise in some places, like our capital city, and have surpassed levels seen during Tropical Storm Irene. The rain has stopped in some areas. But that does not mean waters will immediately recede. They may in fact continue to rise. And even though the sun may shine later today and tomorrow, we expect more rain later this week which will have nowhere to go in the oversaturated ground. So I want to be clear. We are not out of the woods. This is nowhere near over and at this phase our primary focus continues to be on life and safety.”
Vermont Emergency Management Spokesman Mark Bosma says state officials are encouraging people to be vigilant and stay out of floodwaters.
“The worst areas throughout the storm, yesterday we had the Londonderry area and Barre and Montpelier were also hard hit overnight and those towns are dealing with evacuating people. We still have, we currently have, 13 swift water rescue teams out in the field with help from other states and the National Guard is going to have helicopters in the air helping with evacuations from hard hit and remote areas.”
During a late morning briefing Commissioner of Public Safety Jennifer Morrison provided an update on statewide flooding and rescue operations.
“Rivers are creating severe flooding issues this morning even along those that have not yet crested. Vermont’s 13 swift water rescue teams have now performed more than 100 rescues throughout the state and they remain extremely busy. In many areas the water conditions remain too dangerous for rescue by boat. Five helicopters from the Vermont and New Hampshire National Guards are in the air this morning assisting in operations. There are countless road washouts around the state. We will be deploying unmanned aerial aircraft to assist in locating stranded persons as well as to assess flooding and its impacts. As of 9:30 this morning no injuries or deaths have been reported.”
Department of Public Safety Urban Search and Rescue Program Coordinator Mike Cannon says more than 67 evacuations from flooded homes, vehicles or businesses had occurred by midday.
“We are still in a very dangerous part of this disaster. Please do not drive around any barricades indicating that the roads are closed. This morning at approximately 3 a.m. a swift water rescue team from New Hampshire performed an extremely high-risk rescue in Waterbury where a person had driven around a properly barricaded roadway and the car was washed off the roadway almost into the river. That team took a considerable amount of time to safely rescue that woman from that vehicle. I cannot stress this enough. Please. Please. Follow the direction and the input from local and state authorities regarding road closures and safety decisions.”
The Congressional delegation is already providing information on support services and working jointly to make sure Vermonters obtain federal assistance.
First-term Democratic Senator Peter Welch says the plan is to get supplemental appropriations into the FEMA budget.
“I’m working closely with Senator Sanders and Congresswoman Balint on trying to help with casework, with the many questions that are going to come up. We want to keep our eyes on insurance companies and make sure they respond quickly and fairly. We’ve been through it before. Irene was over a billion dollars and there was enormous damage to our roads and to our bridges. Since that didn’t include a lot of the damage to individual homes and individual businesses. So none of us know what the cost is going to be but it’s going to be very, very substantial and it’s going to be something that requires us to get supplemental appropriation for emergency disaster relief. You know what I remember so vividly about Irene is how tough it was when a homeowner would return home and there literally would be two feet of mud.”
At-large Democratic Congresswoman Becca Balint says it’s heartbreaking to see the severity of the damage.
“I am getting pictures and videos from all over Vermont and so many of our downtowns flooded, our capital. Somebody just sent me a video with the water coming up onto the Statehouse lawn. Winooski River is at its second highest level behind the historic flood of 1927. My hometown of Brattleboro is seeing flooding in the low-lying areas and we’re expecting more later. It’s just devastating. Most people that I talk to are saying it’s just, it’s reminding them of the trauma that everybody went through with Tropical Storm Irene. And certainly we didn’t think we’d be going through something this bad so soon. We’re a resilient people in Vermont. We know how to deal with emergency but it’s incredibly devastating to see the amount of water that’s inundating our downtowns.”
On Monday the Vermont Agency of Transportation reported 24 state roads were closed due to flooding. A day later 78 were closed. A number of shelters have opened across the state. A list is on Vermont Emergency Management’s Facebook page and at vermont211.org
There are links for more information at wamc.org.
Current road conditions:
https://vtransparency.vermont.gov/pages/Current%20Conditions
National Weather Service Burlington:
River Gauges:
